


Smoke and Mirrors

by literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Backstory, Deadlock Gang, Dialogue Heavy, F/F, Gen, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, Original Character-centric, POV Moira O'Deorain, Possession, god program, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-24 02:47:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17696177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte/pseuds/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte
Summary: For the Overwatch 2.0 zine."Whatever’s in there could be dangerous.” Reyes swept his gaze around the conference table, making direct eye contact with every member of his team. “And we have to find it and disable it as soon as possible.”Deploying their best agents to the abandoned Five Suns Resort - an old Deadlock base of operations - two organizations try and fail to secure the rogue God Program, Old Coyote. But remember: the house always wins.





	Smoke and Mirrors

**Author's Note:**

> The tags for mind control and possession aren't exactly what's going on in this fic but they're there for readers who are squicked out by anything resembling that. This fic ends a little abruptly because I was already over the word count.

The camouflaged aircraft rose on autopilot, only distinguishable in the night by the ripples of heat from its silent engines. In her decades of politically inconvenient research, Moira had never come this close to war. Simulations couldn’t compare to the industrial stench of omnic death and the echo of gunshots in the expanse of Arizona desert beneath her where Overwatch resisted the Fifth Sun Sector.

McCree and Reyes stood next to each other with their hands behind their backs, exchanging words in low voices. Moira looked out the window with idle curiosity, while Genji’s eyes flickered back and forth, following the explosions below. Reyes’ comm link blinked from his belt, and he answered the call immediately. After a moment, he gave a sharp nod and made a signal that everyone in the room recognized.

The atmosphere was subdued as they gathered around the conference table. Reyes touched the hologram globe and expanded a thermal map of the area, filling the interior of the aircraft with flickering light like a candle in a dark room.

He began, “The omnics are currently occupied with our forces at the choke point. They seem intent on reaching civilization for an unknown but likely hostile reason. This is our objective: we have to infiltrate the site formerly known as the Old Coyote Resort and locate the AI -”

“How exactly,” interrupted Jesse, “will that help those on the front lines?”

Reyes clenched his jaw. “If you’d let me finish - we need to shut down the AI because, as a God Program, we believe it’s the one controlling the Fifth Sun Sector.”

“Shut it down?” Moira said. “Every active God Program was quarantined after the Omnic Crisis. How could this one still be operational?”

“This AI is a special case because of the resort’s history with the Deadlocks. They disabled it before Overwatch could take control of it and possibly extract information from it.”

At the mention of the Deadlocks, Moira looked briefly at McCree. He showed no reaction to the name, except for the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth.

“Commander,” started Genji, and suddenly the hologram disappeared and the aircraft pitched to the side as artillery fire struck nearby. Warning signs blinked on and off around them. Genji waited until the turbulence was over and the aircraft could regain altitude, and then he continued, “Commander, if it’s already disabled, how could it control the Fifth Sun Sector?”

“It’s complicated. When the Deadlocks were... disbanded, the remaining members locked themselves in the resort’s casino. Overwatch agents managed to infiltrate the casino, located below the surface, by drilling through the mountain.” Reyes gestured and lines appeared in the map, forming a tunnel. “The reports given to me were unclear, but it seems as though the God Program was already disabled, including its defenses, by the time our agents reached the Deadlocks.” 

“Why would it become active now, after all this time? Could something else be compelling the Fifth Sun Sector?”

“All our intel points to Old Coyote. There’s just desert for miles and miles around here. Nowhere else for a God Program to hide. It has to be under the mountain.” With another wave of his hand, the map narrowed in on the tunnel. “We can’t attack it from the front because that would draw unnecessary attention from the Fifth Sun Sector. Additionally, if the God Program is no longer dormant, we don’t want to trigger any security protocols. Or draw the attention of whoever activated it. We have to take the same route through the tunnel as our agents did before. The God Program controlled the resort and the casino, and the day it stopped functioning was the day its doors locked for good. The tunnel is the only way in and out that doesn’t require a direct assault.” The map disappeared with a flick of his wrist. He looked at his team and finished with, “No one has entered the Old Coyote Resort since the Deadlocks were captured. We don’t know for sure what’s waiting for us inside.”

“This sounds like an intriguing equation. I find myself eager to solve it,” Moira drawled. “What do we know is true - without a doubt - about the resort?”

Reyes gave her a broad grin, clearly relieved at the chance to ease the tension in the room. “Well, actually...” He reached into a compartment under the table, and finding what he needed, he tossed an array of colorful brochures and pamphlets on top. “I brought reading material in case the trip was boring.”

Moira, long nails clacking together like knives, skimmed through one and quoted, “Two hundred rooms and ten suites. Six hundred square feet... wait. Ski lodge?”

“Apparently, being this far above sea level, they get a decent snowfall in the winter. From a tactical standpoint, it was a brilliant move for the Deadlocks to use the resort as one of their headquarters. The complex is massive and geographically isolated but not in a way that arouses suspicion. It was ran like a legitimate business. That’s how they managed to hide a God Program inside it.”

“The Deadlocks weren’t disorganized,” McCree spoke up. “They dealt with military hardware and weapons, smuggled in plain sight. They were smart about it. They were always smart about everything they did.” He became suddenly aware of the eyes on him and ducked his head, shadowing his face in the brim of his hat. “Never been to this resort myself, but... just don’t underestimate ‘em, is all.”

“Exactly. Whatever’s in there could be dangerous.” Reyes swept his gaze around the conference table, making direct eye contact with every member of his team. “And we have to find it and disable it as soon as possible.”

As the aircraft passed through the clouds, Moira watched wave after wave of omnics fall on the Overwatch troops, and she marveled at the waste of machinery. In the distance loomed the resort, beautiful and empty, with nothing but the blue-black sky between them and her.

/ / /

_“Who are you?” Moira tried to power her beam, and nothing happened except for a dull pulse through her veins. “Where did you come from?”_

_A woman’s voice, as thick and sweet as pulque, dripped from the turquoise skull. Light spilled like steam from the empty sockets as she spoke, “Smoking mirrors,” though it more likely was, "smoke and mirrors.”_

_“What do you want?”_

_The wisps of hair at the back of her neck were damp with sweat, and her hand was seized by muscle cramps as her beam sent out yellow feathers instead of plasma._

_“To see you.”_

_Moira realized that it wasn’t a human skull at all, and she tried to process what she was seeing. It was strangely animal, vaguely canine. And it was unhinging its jaw with laughter. A beetle crawled out of its eye socket and into its mouth, and the skull crushed it, dying its teeth in cochineal red. A body began to take shape underneath the skull, rising like a veil out of the shadows._

_Behind the skull, the violet-hazy silhouette of another girl formed, and the air became moist with a salty tang like a sweat lodge. More feathers fell from above, covering the invisible floor where Moira was half-submerged._

_“You won't do... but she will. And you’ll come to me with the patlache.”_

_The woman’s voice continued to laugh. There was the sound of drums and, from somewhere deeper, the thunderous roar of an avalanche. When she woke up, she could still hear it ringing in her ears._

/ / /

For the second time since its masters abandoned it, the lights of Old Coyote came on. Dust settled thick on every surface and in every crevice. The empty space echoed with the dull thrum of silence where little sounds became magnified, and their breaths came out in clouds.

“Did you ever find her?” Sombra held a casino token between her index and middle finger as if she was about to perform a coin trick. “It, I mean. The God Program.”

The Reaper said, “Of course we didn't find it. Why else would we be here now?”

“The mission was a disaster,” answered Moira in a neutral tone. “Once we came through the tunnel, we lost all communication with the outside world. Tensions spiraled out of control. It didn't matter, really. As soon as we were inside the resort, the Fifth Sun Sector... you've read the reports, I assume? Even the unofficial, hush-hush ones?”

“Of course I have,” Sombra said, “but I want your perspective on it.”

“Then you know what they say happened to the Sector.”

“Do I? What do you think happened?”

Moira contemplated the mouth of the tunnel where they'd been spat into the resort lobby. Then she regarded the casino itself, raking her eyes over the diamond-patterned marble floors once strewn with confetti and swaying drunks. Even if no one else did, Old Coyote remembered the pop of champagne corks and the chime of slot machines as the Deadlocks cleaned their guns in the back rooms, surrounded by stacks of money. It remembered, through the scars of bullet holes and footprints on expensive rugs, the Overwatch agents who searched and searched yet never found it. None were worthy enough.

Old Coyote must have laughed at them, all of them.

She imagined how the Deadlocks died - in a pile, blood soaking through their pocket squares and pooling in their leather shoes - and wondered if Old Coyote remembered that day, too. If somewhere it sat in this luxurious mausoleum with the power of a god, slowly forgetting when it was only a casino.

“Every last omnic - they shut down. They stopped attacking and shut themselves down. What do I think happened? I think this place is alive, and when we took the bait, it didn't need the Sector anymore. It made that decision as easily as it let the Deadlocks die. It wasn't starting a war. It was... well, I'm not sure what it was. But it wasn't a war.”

The Reaper drifted past them like a cloud of stale smoke. In her secretive way, Sombra smiled at his back and then at Moira.

“If you think this place is alive,” Sombra said, rolling the token over her knuckles, “why come back?”

“And miss the opportunity to talk to a god?”

“What would you say to her?”

“I would tell it...” Moira glanced at Sombra. “I would tell her that I only desire to understand her and why she did what she did. And I'm curious to see what she will do next. Not as a scientist, but...”

"But as a woman?"

The speakers came to life, hissing static and then soft jazz. The Reaper trailed up the staircase, leaving Moira alone with Sombra in the casino. Moira walked besides her under the massive domed ceiling and tried to find the cameras as their red eyes scanned her micro-expressions.

“I dreamed about you once, the night before the Fifth Sun attacked,” Moira said casually.

Hexagons of LED glinted in Sombra’s eyes. “I filled the pockets of criminals with the dreams of gamblers, once. I can touch your thoughts. Change them. Tell me, have you ever heard of a casino committing a heist against itself?”

“There’s no money left in this resort to steal.”

“It’s not money we’re after, remember?” Sombra tapped the side of her head. “I can fit quite a lot in here, you know.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“We have the time.”

“What use was the Five Sun Sector? A distraction?”

Sombra hummed along with the music, and Moira waited for her to finally reply, “It was a call, and you answered.” She extended a hand towards Moira. “Dance with me, doctor.”

“You understand that I have been sent by Talon to retrieve you for their own purposes.”

“Yes, just as much as you understand that I can hack into your bank account at a moment’s notice. Will you dance with a beautiful woman or no?”

Moira took her hand. “I’ll dance with two.”

**Author's Note:**

> Like I said, I know it ends abruptly and I couldn't explain everything in detail cuz of the word limit, but basically Sombra and Old Coyote share a body now.


End file.
